Wednesday, June 07, 2017

ENTREPRENEURSHIP: IDEAS AND CREATIVITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS SUCCESS - PART 1

Every business starts with an
idea. Two persons can have same idea but the packaging of the idea is what
makes the difference. Using schools as our example, today, all around us in
Nigeria, we can see private schools –Creche, Pre-nursery, Nursery, primary,
secondary, and university.

At every level, you can see they
are of different classes. The proprietors and proprietresses all had the idea-
establishing a school. But when the ideas are activated, we see schools in
different styles.

They all have same idea but
creativity is what differentiates them. The deciding factor of most ideas is
Creativity. When you are Creative, your idea becomes unique.

Making your idea unique is
something no one can do for you, you have to do it yourself. The best thing any
expert around you can do is to assist you, but the concept has to come from
you; your taste defines your business.

BECOMING CREATIVE:

1. DO A SWOT ANALYSIS. Begin with yourself: Know your strengths and
weaknesses alongside that of your competitors. Your strength is what you are
competent and very good at.They are
your skills, talents, experiences, knowledge, available resources ( time,
money, energy level, access to Information, Customer data base & so on) .Use
your strength to work on the opportunities in your industry.

Your weaknesses are those things you
lack but are required to succeed in your business. They could be short of
resources & capabilities, negative attitude, people’s skill, amongst
others. Weaknesses can be improved upon, if you accept that they are your
weaknesses and desire a change.

Be cautious on how you handle your
weaknesses; they can make you vulnerable to your competitors.

Know your strengths and
weaknesses alongside that of your competitors. Do a research on your competitors’
strengths and weaknesses. Their weaknesses could be what they’re not doing well
or what they should have that they don’t have.

Look at all the opportunities you
have in the market alongside the threats. Opportunities – New markets you can
find through your products. Use your strength to devour your opportunities.

2.CREATE VALUE: your main reason for being in business is to create value; this
should be your priority. You can ignore other this listed here, but take this
more seriously, as negligence of this can run you out of business. Ensure your
product or service meets the demand and sometimes supersede the demands of your
final consumers.

3.DARE TO BE DIFFERENT: Differentiating is what
makes consumers come for your products and services How do you differentiate
your product or service in an overcrowded market place? Of a truth, the market/
industries are overcrowded with different products and services that can be
sometime confusing to consumers when making buying decisions.

Sit down and think on how best your product or
service could be done to stand distinct from others. It must be different from
others, in that, it will have more value than the rest in the market.

Set a standard that will take a
long time for your competitors to catch up. If you are in the furniture making
business, make sure you have a better quality, price, delivery time, aftersales
services, and so on.

Create an identity for yourself.
You can only learn from people but you cannot be like them. You can only be
better or worst. You can be second best if you insist. You must be convinced
about your product/service and be willing to pay the amount you’re offering.
Over believe in your idea.

4.SAMPLE YOUR PRODUCT/ SERVICE:
This is Very necessary, as it helps you know what your potential customers feel
about your product before it finally gets to them. Get the opinion of people by
giving them to use maybe for free or at a discounted price.5.CREATE A NEED: You don’t only wait to meet a need at the market place; create a
need and address it. According to Steve Jobs, sometimes customers don’t know
what they want until you show them.

Creativity demands you look at
both ends- creating a need and meeting it- else you will be lagging behind.
Waiting for customers to tell you what they want might put you in a fix. How
can people who don’t know what they want, show you what they want?

The iphones and ipads we have
today are good examples. There are people today that cannot use anything other
than a ‘touch screen’ phone. The normal phones are now stressful to them because
a genius introduced touch screen phones.

6.PRODUCT RE-ENGINEERING: Take a critical look at your product or service. Assume you are
the end user. Imagine what your customers will love to see in your product or service.
To be on track, do a survey around you so as to know how best to improve on
your product.

When you get customers opinion
and how they want your product to be, you can integrate their demand into the
existing product. You must be careful doing this, some customers may not like
the new design and may opt for another product.

Sometimes it’s better to leave
the product the way it is and develop another product that will have the
existing features plus the demands of customers.

TIPS ON HOW TO BE CREATIVE:

1.OBSERVE. Before you can come up with
a brilliant idea, you need to openly receive information from the world around
you, use the technique called Mindfulness. Paying attention to what is
happening at the moment in your industry. With this, you’ll catch more ideas on
how to make things better.2.STUDY: study with everything you know you can get knowledge from. Read
books, magazines, journals, browse the internet- google trends, yahoo, ehow, news
sites- watch videos, listen to tapes and pod casts, attend trainings, get
involved in discussions, visit relevant places, etc.

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